The main drag that runs through camp is a dirt road. It is actually in pretty good shape, but it is still a dirt road. There is a lot of engineering that goes into designing roads, you want to make sure that the road drains correctly and that there is adequate line of sight so that you see oncoming traffic in plenty of time.
The camp road did not adhere to these standards, it really couldn't. Consequently, there were lots of blind turns, the conditions could change rapidly depending on whether it had rained, etc. When it came to traffic rules, there were really only two. 1. No riding in the back of a pick-up truck; 2. The camp speed limit was 10 mph. Amazingly, almost everyone followed rule #1, it was strictly enforced and for the most part followed. Not by these people, but otherwise, typically followed. The speed limit was not followed by anyone except John C. Different people disobeyed it to different extents, but no-one regularly drove at 10 mph. I think the idea was if you set it at 10, you would hope people would mainly do 20-25 mph. Which, for the most part was safe.
One of the unique features of driving at camp was you were always on the look out for someone coming the opposite way to put an arm out the window. This was the universal sign for a road side chat. Road side chats were one of my favorite parts of camp, because you had no idea whether it would be a quick 30 second talk, or a full blown 20 minute conversation. The procedure was always the same. Both vehicles would come to a stop, window to window. If it was to be a quick chat, you would simply stay in the vehicle, but the extended chats involved everyone getting out of their respective vehicle and gathering around the bed of a pick-up truck. The bed of a pickup truck is the perfect height to lean against with your elbows at about chin height and shoot the breeze. The other unwritten rule was that the vehicles were left with the ignition on. I think this was due to never knowing how long the convo was going to be, so it made little sense to take the fraction of a second to turn off the ignition. This is where the true business of camp was done, under the sun, surrounded by the mountains, around the bed of an ancient pick-up truck. You would think that with two trucks blocking traffic in either direction it would be a problem, but more often than not, other vehicles would simply stop and join in on the conversation. Because you may encounter a couple vehicles in the road at anytime, it was another reason to take her easy on the camp roads.
I can't remember which summer it was, but on one weekend, M.L. and I decided to set up an informal speed trap. We were missing a few key elements: (1) Any authority to do this; (2) Any equipment to measure the speed of oncoming vehicles; (3) Any way to indicate to other drivers that we were cops for the day. We also chose an odd vehicle for our pursuit vehicle. It was a 1984 dump truck, 4 speed manual transmission, not exactly a speed demon. For some reason, I loved that old truck. There was one summer where I didn't take out many trips and mainly helped out with maintenance around camp. I think I was informally assigned that vehicle as my own - I have to guess that is why M.L. and I were using it. Generally, the camp road went past the Ranger house, up a hill, past Camp Waubeeka proper, then past Lake Waubeeka, past the old wood dump and Old Farmhouse, to Camp Buckskin, Past Central Office and then to Summit Base. As I write this, I realize Central Office really wasn't very central at all. But, for whatever reason, that was the name given to it. Near Lake Waubeeka, there was a little pull off that was kind of hidden. I am not sure what the real purpose of this was, but M.L. and I decided it would be perfect for our speed trap. The thing is, we did this on our day off, a Saturday. There is never much traffic on the camp road, but particularly on a Saturday after all the scouts have left there is even less. So, we spent most of the time talking. Every so often a vehicle would come by, we would decide it was speeding or perhaps was not up to some other code and would do our best to pursue it. The problem was, the old dumper was pretty slow. It topped out at about 5 mph in 1st and you had to get into 3rd before you were even at 30 mph. Still we thought it was great fun. We would come tearing out of the hiding space (in reality, we would leave it as a brisk walk pace) and get behind whomever was driving and flash the lights and honk the horn. Every so often they would pull over and generally would play along with the game.
Looking back, it was stupid, but it was lots of fun at the time.
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